Ghana Integrity Initiative Chief, Vitus Azeem, has backed Thursday\u2019s Presidential order to the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) to withdraw adverts inviting bids to manage the youth employment agency\u2019s ICT module.<\/p>\n
But, he said, President John Dramani Mahama must go beyond merely ordering a \u201cwithdrawal\u201d of the adverts and punish the GYEEDA officials who authorized their publication.<\/p>\n
Authorities at GYEEDA placed adverts in the media recently, requesting for bids to run the agency\u2019s ICT module.<\/p>\n
The move provoked public outcry. Pressure group, Mass Action Committee, issued a press statement, calling for immediate withdrawal of the adverts.<\/p>\n
Early Thursday, both the Member of Parliament for Obuasi West, Kweku Kwarteng, and Vitus Azeem of the Ghana Integrity Initiative backed public calls for the adverts to be withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Late Thursday, the Office of the President issued a statement, ordering GYEEDA to withdraw the adverts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Office of the President has reiterated that all directives on GYEEDA remain in force,\u201d the statement, signed Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga, said. \u201cThe request for proposals to implement an ICT model presently being advertised by GYEEDA is therefore without authorization and should be withdrawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a CitiNews<\/strong> interview, Mr. Azeem welcomed the presidential order but said serious sanctions must follow.<\/p>\n \u201cHow come that somebody decided to put adverts in the newspapers? The President gave instructions that there should be a hold on it; so somebody will have to explain why he or she decided to disregard the Presidents directive and went ahead to place adverts in the newspapers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Spokesperson for the Mass Action Committee, Atik Mohammed, also backed the Presidential order.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cThe Mass Action Committee expresses its sincerest gratitude to His Excellency John Dramani Mahama and his outfit for the prompt manner in which they have responded to our request made on Tuesday 22nd April, 2014\u2026 to retract the advert placed in the Daily Graphic.<\/p>\n He said the Presidential order shows \u201cthe President\u2019s commitment and belief in GYEEDA\u2019s success and sustainability still remain unshaken\u201d.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cWe are also excited to note that, not only did the Office of the President order the cancellation of the said advert, it also admonished GYEEDA to stay focused and dedicated to the Action Plan aimed at tackling the structural, institutional and legal weaknesses of GYEEDA….\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201c\u2026We also wish to assure the President and the GYEEDA leadership that we will continue to lend them support in every way we can, throughout this journey of GYEEDA\u2019s revival.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2013, a wave of financial scandals triggered a government investigation into the activities of GYEEDA.<\/p>\n The investigations found evidence of corruption and massive misuse of public funds under the programme, compelling President Mahama to order a freeze on GYEEDA\u2019s operations. The President also ordered complete overhaul of GYEEDA\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghana Integrity Initiative Chief, Vitus Azeem, has backed Thursday\u2019s Presidential order to the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) to withdraw adverts inviting bids to manage the youth employment agency\u2019s ICT module. But, he said, President John Dramani Mahama must go beyond merely ordering a \u201cwithdrawal\u201d of the adverts and punish the GYEEDA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":14810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38,17],"class_list":["post-15166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-wassa-akropong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}